Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
I am confident that Netflix will succeed. I am just acknowledging that failure is a remote possibility.
If the range of TV choices is what you and others want, then I hope for your sakes that it comes about. I don't have anything against that. I am simply pointing out that rationalisation is far more likely as demand for traditional TV continues to decline.
You're the economics guy. You tell me why content providers should continue to provide all these channels in the longer term. It's all very well you saying they can be run on a shoestring, but you can't do that with decent content. Whilst it's true that content providers need to pay anyway for their VOD content, they have to pay separately to screen that content on live TV. I just cannot see how that would be worthwhile. In the end, only the most efficient providers with quality content will survive. Why would they want to saddle themselves with unnecessary cost and effort?
|
I've been over this a million times.
Literally nobody buys anything other than exclusive rights to content - live, on demand, streaming, etc. It'd leave a huge gaping hole in business plans all around the industry if a streamer didn't pick up all forms of TV rights to ensure nobody else (ITV for example) started beaming your non-exclusive content into 26 million homes.
So it's a total red herring to claim there's any additional rights cost
at all.
Which brings us to the
genuine additional cost and effort. Which is demonstrably virtually nothing given the channels all over the EPG running on shoestring budgets with virtually zero viewers.
Why continue? If you are ITV, Channel 4 or Five you get prominence on Freeview. If you are Sky you get prominence in 9 million homes on your own platform. None of these companies are going to walk away from that lightly to become apps on a Samsung TV leaving prominence (and software updates) up to the manufacturer. Of course they will have a streaming presence, but why rely on that alone and give up your golden goose that is the fact people switch on their sets and find you right there at the top of the EPG.
If you don't think that this prominence has any significance at all can you explain to me why an Andy Murray match at Wimbledon will rate higher on BBC1 than BBC2? Why would the FA Cup rate higher on the BBC than ITV?
You are simply applying your own views to the entire population - and as I've said before anything other than state intervention makes it extremely difficult to get 100% of a population to do anything.